Author: wamdiness

Let’s be honest, rock concert films can be a bit hit or miss. But one that definitely hit is Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii. And now it’s back, with a new revamped, remixed version coming to cinemas next month.

To celebrate the release of Pink Floyd At Pompeii MCMLXXII (note no ‘Live’ and the added numerals), we talked with Floyd drummer Nick Mason and the man behind the new mix, Steven Wilson, about the new version, how it fits into Pink Floyd’s decadeslong legacy, and also how the original film came to be made.

The new issue also includes two Pink Floyd gifts: an official laptop sticker and a giant film poster (available to all subscribers, all online purchasers and at UK newsstands).

Elsewhere, we have a chat with The Darkness as they release their new Dreams On Toast LP, and look back at the making of two very different albums of the 80s – namely Gary Moore’s Run For Cover and Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet. And there’s much more…

Sadly, we lost a fair few rock icons to the great gig in the sky this month. We learned of the passing of The Damned’s Brian James just before we went to press, and will pay tribute to him next issue.

Get the new issue of Classic Rock

Features

Pink Floyd
With a new updated version about to hit cinemas, we look back at the making of Pink Floyd Live At Pompeii, with recollections from drummer Nick Mason, director Adrian Maben and more.

Steven Wilson
Mr Busy on his new solo album, the wonder of space, being a control freak, being prog (or not), Porcupine Tree and more.

Bon Jovi
With the way paved by monster hit Livin’ On A Prayer, Slippery When Wet propelled the band to superstardom.

Smith/Kotzen
Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith and one-time shredder Richie Kotzen’s joint musical venture is no vanity project.

Gary Moore
After leaving Thin Lizzy he made some creditable solo albums in the 80s, then he struck rock gold with Run For Cover.

The Darkness
Defiance makes them the eccentrics that they are, as demonstrated on new album Dreams On Toast.

Envy Of None
Second time’s a charm for Rush’s Alex Lifeson as he returns with a new album alongside his collaborators in Envy Of None.

Goo Goo Dolls
As A Boy Named Goo turns 30, the band tell the story of the album that took them from alt.rock to the mainstream.

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Regulars

The Dirt
Ozzy Osbourne will do “little bits and pieces” at Black Sabbath’s Villa Park show; Bad Company and The Black Crowes among Hall Of Fame 2025 nominees; Iron Maiden and Motörhead miss out again; Welcome back Lacuna Coil and Bumblefoot; Say hello to Himalayas and Sons Of Silver; Say goodbye to David Johansen, Rick Buckler, Joey Molland and more.

The Stories Behind The Songs: Bush
A song that its writer at first thought he’d ripped off from someone else’s, Glycerine became their biggest US hit and helped its parent album Sixteen Stone sell more than five million copies.

The Hot List
We look at some of the essential new tracks you need to hear and the artists to have on your radar. This month they include Samantha Fish, Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown, When Rivers Meet, The Rattlebacks, The Blue Stones and more.

Reviews
New albums from Masters Of Reality, Smith/Kotzen, Those Damn Crows, Envy Of None, Amplifier, Don Airey, Gotthard, L.A. Guns, Simon McBride; Reissues from Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes, Rush, Dio, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, Motörhead, Big Big Train, Pete Townshend; DVDs, films and books on Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, The Yardbirds; Live reviews of Uriah Heep, Beth Hart, Opeth, Frank Black, The Godfathers and more.

Buyer’s Guide: Pretenders
Pulling together strands of various music styles, Chrissie Hynde steered the regularly changing band to deserved major success.

Lives
We preview tours by Asia, Kula Shaker and Tygers Of Pan Tang. Plus gig listings – who’s playing where and when.

The Soundtrack Of My Life: Simon McBride
Deep Purple guitarist and solo artist Simon McBride picks his records, artists and gigs of lasting significance.

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Originally comprised of former members of Yes (guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Geoffrey Downes), King Crimson (bassist/vocalist John Wetton) and ELP (drummer Carl Palmer), Asia’s aural slush puppy of soft rock and prog produced a self-titled debut that became America’s best seller of 1982.

Forty-three years later, Downes – a last link with those days – and a new line-up play three nights in which they will be performing the first three Asia albums in full, one per night, at Trading Boundaries in Sussex.

This line-up of Asia debuted at the John Wetton Tribute show in 2023.

It was a brilliant night, lots of great people including Rick Wakeman came along. Bill Bruford even stepped out of retirement to be a part of it all. It showed what a great impact John had on so many artists. It was also a trigger for going out on the road in America last summer with Martin Turner, Focus and Curved Air.

That first show as the ‘new’ Asia must have been an emotional and stressful experience for you.

It was, yeah. From my own standpoint it was great to carry on with the music that John and I wrote together all those years ago. I know that John would have been appreciative of that happening.

John’s widow Lisa believes he would have “endorsed” the band’s continuation as he “wanted the music to live on”.

That’s correct. For me, the last thing I wanted was to put Asia music into a locker and say I’ll never do that again. And now we’ve got the opportunity to get back out there again and play those first three albums, which were so significant. Of course there’s a type of keyboard warrior who noisily disagrees.

Do you take any perverse interest in such negativity?

It can be quite funny if you choose to look at it that way. Everybody’s got a voice, and some of the comments are quite amusing, but I’m long enough in the tooth to brush off that sort of thing and just keep moving. The haters won’t stop us from doing what we do.

Could you tell us about the other members of Asia 2025, starting with guitarist John Mitchell?

John was in the [solo] band of the other John [Wetton] for quite some time and they had a very good relationship. He was also a member of the Icon project that I had with John Wetton, so I’m very happy that he agreed to become a part of this new Asia.

Mitchell is also an accomplished singer. Was any thought given to him becoming the frontman?

John is a great vocalist, but when I discovered Harry that really changed the game. That’s Harry Whitley, on bass and lead vocals. Yeah. Harry is another great musician. He has a fantastic understanding of John’s voice. At the time, Harry was working on a farm in North Wales, and I thought: “He’s got all the right credentials” [laughs]. I called him up, he came on board and we had our lead singer.

How exactly did you find him?

Harry sent some Asia covers via Twitter, and they were so good they gave me a chill down my spine. People will be very impressed by him. At times you close your eyes and it’s quite eerie – he could be John. He’s only thirty. It’s good to have some young blood in the band, it brings the average age down quite a bit.

And Virgil Donati played drums with Planet X and Ring Of Fire.

John [Wetton] had worked with Virgil in UK, so there was a connection there. Carl [Palmer] was very busy with his ELP show [Welcome Back My Friends], so Virgil came in. He’s really warmed to the subtleties of the material.

Across three nights at Trading Boundaries this line-up will play the first three Asia albums.

It’ll take an enormous amount of preparation, because some of those albums were years in the making. Rattling them off will be a heck of a challenge, no doubt about it, but it’s one that we are relishing.

Are any songs yet to be performed live, maybe from Astra?

We only ever did Voice Of America from Astra, so that show will have a lot of very, very deep cuts. It wasn’t everyone’s favourite, but there’s a posse of fans that really, really loves it.

Many fans will be unable to make it to Sussex. What about recording these three shows, or taking the concept on the road?

We will definitely record the Trading Boundaries shows, and then we head straight off to Japan to do the same thing. I’d be well up for touring it in Britain – so we’re open to offers.

What’s going on with your other band, Yes?

We’ve been working on an album for the past six months. Steve [Howe, guitarist and now producer] is at the helm and I think it will be out later in the year.

Will there be any new music from Asia?

It’s being talked about. I’ve even got some stuff that I worked on with John [Wetton] many years ago, so recording that might be interesting.

Asia play Trading Boundaries on in East Sussex on April 10, 11 and 12.

Paramore’s Hayley Williams joined Deftones onstage for a performance of the nu metal-era band’s 2003 track Minerva.

The frontwoman sang with Chino Moreno and company onstage during their show in Nashville on Wednesday (March 26). Watch the footage below.

This isn’t the first time Williams has joined Deftones for a song live. In 2010, she sang White Pony favourite Passenger with the band during a show in Luxembourg.

Deftones, who released Minerva as the lead single of their self-titled album, stopped at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena as part of their ongoing North American tour with The Mars Volta. They played a career-spanning 20-song setlist including such hits as Change (In The House Of Flies), Hole In The Earth and Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away).

Meanwhile, The Mars Volta have reportedly been playing material from an as-yet-unreleased studio album called Lucro Sucio; Los Ojos Del Vacio. According to a recent report by Brooklyn Vegan, the progressive rockers’ ninth album will come out on April 11 and is available for preorder. One Reddit user claims to have heard the album after being given Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s personal copy by the frontman himself.

Deftones and The Mars Volta will tour North America together until April 9. After that, Deftones will head to Europe for a leg of festival slots and headline shows. The tour includes stops at London’s 15,000-capacity Crystal Palace Park and The Eden Project in the West Country. They’ll also appear at Glastonbury festival.

The band are also set to headline two shows at Rogers Stadium in Toronto, Canada, alongside System Of A Down on September 3 and 5. The gigs are part of a larger North American run in August and September.

See all of Deftones’ upcoming live plans and get tickets via their website.

Deftones released their latest album Ohms in 2020 and have been working on a follow-up. In an interview with Billboard Español in December, Moreno said the band’s new album will drop in 2025.

Paramore released their sixth and latest album, This Is Why, in 2023. The band have no future tour dates set at time of publication.

Bruce Springsteen and Flea joined forces on Wednesday night in New York City for a performance of “Because the Night.”

It was part of People Have The Power: A Celebration of Patti Smith, which took place at Carnegie Hall. Springsteen and Flea played with Tony Shanahan, a longtime member of Smith’s own band, plus Charlie Sexton, a regular guitarist in Bob Dylan‘s touring band, and Steve Jordan, the Rolling Stones‘ touring drummer.

Other artists to perform at the show, which raised money for underserved youth music programs, included Karen O, Michael Stipe and Johnny Depp.

You can watch fan-filmed footage of “Because the Night” below.

Why Bruce Springsteen Gave ‘Because the Night’ to Patti Smith

Springsteen originally tried recording “Because the Night” with his E Street Band in June of 1977, but felt it lacking. His producer, Jimmy Iovine, then gave Smith a tape of the song, who added lyrics and recorded it with her band the Patti Smith Group for their 1978 album Easter. It was a hit, reaching No. 13 in the U.S. and No. 5 in the U.K.

“I was a tremendous admirer of Patti, you know,” Springsteen would later explain for the book Why Patti Smith Matters (via Variety), “and I was just flattered that she was interested in collaborating, and I was just happy that she found something that she could do with the song, you know, because that song would still be in my archives if it wasn’t for her. And it would be something that nobody had ever heard of.”

Bruce Springsteen Live Albums Ranked

Longtime fans will tell you his studio records are only half the story – concert performances are the other, and maybe more essential, part.

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

John 5 said he once spent five hours on the hunt for an autograph from Gene Simmons – then at the last moment decided not to take it.

The incident took place when the future Motley Crue guitarist was around 13 or 14 years old, and Kiss were playing Detroit one night in the early ‘80s.

“I wanted to meet my heroes and I was waiting at the Pontchartrain Hotel,” 5 told 101 WRIF in a recent interview (video below). “I’m this little kid, skipping school; kind of preppy and all that stuff. And I’m the only one in the lobby.”

READ MORE: John 5 Responds to Accusations of Guitar Miming With Motley Crue

He’d identified the correct hotel when he saw tour buses parked outside; and the scene was to become familiar to him. “I was waiting there all day — all day,” he said. He recalled thinking, “Hopefully he’ll come down and have something to eat or go get coffee… or who knows, one of the guys.”

That’s more or less how it went down. “So, here comes Gene Simmons! He was walking out of the bus into the hotel. And I had my Originals booklet… I said, ‘Mr. Simmons! Mr. Simmons!’’And he walked right by me. I’m this little kid.”

When Gene Simmons and Young John 5 Shared an Elevator

5 wasn’t going to give up, though. “And he gets in the elevator; and I was like, ‘Screw this!’ So I get in the elevator too. And he’s standing there, and I have my booklet and my little marker.”

Soon came the moment that made the day so memorable. “The elevator opens to his floor, and he goes, ‘You want me to sign that?’ And I go, ‘No, it’s okay.’ Isn’t that great?

“True story. I don’t know what it was; I was just so, like, upset… I was no threat – I was just a little kid. … I was waiting there for, like, five hours, and he goes, ‘You want me to sign that?’ And I was like, ‘No, it’s okay.’ Then the elevator shut!”

5 will be inviting fans to enjoy his massive collection of classic-era Kiss memorabilia with the Knights in Satan’s Service museum, which opens in May of 2025.

Watch John 5’s Interview with 101 WRIF

Kiss Live Albums Ranked Worst to Best

You wanted the best, you get the best.. and the rest.

Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

For Kansas vocalist Ronnie Platt, it was a moment where his entire life flashed before his eyes after he heard the news he had cancer.

“You know, I’m a singer that sings a couple high notes and not knowing anything about what I had, it was pretty scary,” he said during a conversation for the UCR Podcast. “The first thing that entered my mind was, okay, how much time do I have?” Thankfully, a little more than a month and a half after revealing his diagnosis of thyroid cancer, Platt is walking with a clean bill of health and preparing to return to the road with Kansas on April 4 in Ivins, Utah. But as he shared, it’s been an emotional journey.

After his initial diagnosis, he went to seek a second opinion and found out the doctor wouldn’t be able to see him until mid-April. Thanks to lucky circumstance, it turned out that guitarist Frank Sintich, his former bandmate in the ’80s Chicago-area band Chaser, had a direct connection. His girlfriend worked for the very doctor that he was trying to get in and see. Before he knew it, he was set for an appointment with Dr. Peter Angelos at the University of Chicago. By late February, he was scheduled for surgery on March 4.

As his doctors discovered, the cancer itself was possibly the result of radiation therapy he’d had in the early ’60s when his parents took him in as a young child to address a birthmark on the tip of his nose. It was something that had been incubating potentially for decades, but also was slow-moving, to the point that his doctor told him, “For [these] nodules to impact your life, you’d have to live to be 150 years old.” Though it was stressful navigating through the series of appointments and logistics, Platt is grateful with how things ultimately worked out.

How He’s Feeling Now

“It was just crazy how everything [eventually] fell into place so seamlessly,” he says. “My cousin Karen and her husband Bill took me to the hospital. They checked me in and I was out before [I knew it]. You know, [they’ve got] good drugs in them hospitals. [Platt chuckles]. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in the recovery room. All the doctor had to do is take the nodule. I still have my thyroid. It’s unbelievable. I think I was awake for an hour in the recovery room and I walked [out]. I didn’t take a wheelchair. I walked the length of that hospital to the parking garage. They gave me a prescription for pain, I never even opened the bottle. I had no pain and you can’t even see [where they went in for the procedure].”

“Here we are, 20 days [after] my surgery and I’m going to be back to work April 4 in Ivins, Utah,” he continues. “It’s just amazing. It was such a crazy roller coaster ride to find out what was going on with me and really, having the thought of, how much life do I have left? Then learning so much stuff, the ups and downs of dealing with the insurance and the frustrations to come out with the absolute most positive, uplifting outcome that could possibly happen [is wonderful].”

READ MORE: Kansas and 38 Special Announce Summer 2025 Tour

“It really feels like it was just a bump in the road,” he concludes. “When I think about other friends who have gone through things like chemotherapy and being sick all of the time. I haven’t gone through that and I feel very lucky. I really feel lucky that Mother Nature sent me up a flag. You know, something told me, ‘Don’t put off seeing a doctor this time.’ The things that happened, the people that helped me and [those who] I met along the way were just amazing.”

Listen to Ronnie Platt on the ‘UCR Podcast’